affirmation deck swap, mine

When I came across this, I thought these people are crazy, making 52 cards for a swap. But I went back to the post a couple times, looking at all the cards on the ring, wondering what was on each one. Then I went off and looked at the tutorial links. By that point I knew I was gonna sign up for the darn thing. The saving grace here was that in a few days my husband was going out of town for nine days. With all that art time, I figured I could knock them out. Besides, one of the tutorials talked about how she did hers all in one afternoon or something ridiculous, so how hard could it be...


Fast forward to last nite and I am indeed done with all 52 (plus 3 extra just to be safe) cards. Just need to stick my contact info stickers on the back and get them in the mail. The swap isn't until mid-November so I have a while to wait till I get mine back but when I do, it will be one card each from 52 other artists. I think that was the real thing that got me to sign up - all that different art. Most swaps you get 1 or 3 items back. But 52? Couldn't resist.

I whacked up a bunch of cereal boxes. We eat cold cereal at my house at the rate of 3-4 boxes a week, so I had plenty in the pantry to steal boxes from. (So now there's a bunch of unmarked bags of cereal in the pantry (because who would have the brains to mark them before destroying the boxes??) and you're never sure what you're gonna get.)


I cut them to roughly the size of multiples of 2.5x3.5 (ATC size), then glued pretty scrapbook paper on the printed sides. Next day I gessoed the brown side just to get a good base on them. Then got out the metallic paints and went to town. That's a really fun time, smushing the colors around to see what you get. Then I stamped and stencils with a few favorites. Let them dry well and cut them into individual cards. Quite a pile. I was briefly impressed with myself lol.

the backs

Figuring out the affirmations (they all had to be different) was the tough part for me. I'm not religious, not much into contemplating my life and what I'm doing with each day, don't examine my feelings a whole lot - so I looked thru a couple books I had for good thoughts and motivational expressions. Also cruised thru a few quotes sites, culling the ones I was comfortable with. I printed them on tracing paper, then cut them into strips. Got out the gel medium, turned on the Ryder Cup and sat there for 2 hours cutting and gluing. Wasn't too bad and as I worked I imagined a hundred other artists elsewhere in the world all doing the same thing.

the leftovers

THEN... I hauled them all out to the patio table and sprayed them with high gloss varnish to seal them. I'm pleased with them, glad to have them all done, and am looking forward to getting mine back. I don't know if working on one a week will help make me a nicer person but it will be fun to see the art.